


that terrible Silence

by Flamingbluepanda



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:48:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25559821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flamingbluepanda/pseuds/Flamingbluepanda
Summary: It starts in the Van
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 22
Kudos: 439





	that terrible Silence

**Author's Note:**

> I've watched the old guard four times in the last like, two days. It's so good. Joe and Nicky are incredible. And, as per usual when I find a new ship, I checked the Major Character Death tag to see what was there. And there were so many great Nicky dies fics and like, one Joe dies fic.
> 
> This, obviously, had to be rectified. 
> 
> So here's my Nicky goes beast mode angst fic (which then has a happy ending because I'm awful)
> 
> (Also I haven't used this much google translate Italian in a fic since my hetalia days. go figure)
> 
> Dedicated to everyone who's supported me taking a break from social media for the last week. See you guys soon!

It starts in the back of the armored car.

After Joe’s speech- which, sure, Nicky’s heard it before but it always makes his heart warm- they separate them, and when Joe curses in Arabic one of them shoots him in the thigh to shut him up.

Joe bleeds a lot, perhaps more than usual, or perhaps it’s just the panic, the lingering effects of the gas in his brain. Nicky leans forward a little, wanting to hold him, or at least press himself against him. The guards hold him back. 

By the time they get on the plane Joe is limping, but able to walk.

After they land at the lab they meet the man of the hour. Stephen Merrick acts like some sort of blessed saint, come to give the world peace. Nicky hates him immediately.

And that’s _before_ he decides to use Nicky’s soul as a pincushion. 

When Nicky wakes up in the lab again Joe is pale and shaking, shirtless with tubes sticking out his arms. 

Kosak is merciless, and her incessant claims that it’s for science only makes it worse. Science was good and moved the world along. This- this was not science. This was horror.

Bone samples, blood samples, biopsies and removals, and _pain._ They die hundreds of times. 

Each time, Joe wakes up and coughs, puts on a brave face, and smiles at Nicky. 

Nicky wishes he could hold his hand, touch him at all. He needs proof, proof that Joe is there. He won’t acknowledge that Joe’s taking longer to come back, that his eyes are losing the light that has sustained Nicky for one thousand years. 

It doesn’t matter. It’s just because they’ve been killed in such quick succession. It’s fine.

After this, Nicky will take Joe back to Malta, will lay him out on a couch in the sunlight and kiss every inch of his skin, will make sweet love to him until Joe is warm and bright and smiling again, lighting up Nicky’s life for now and forever.

Nicky dies again and wakes just as they drag in Andy and Booker. Andy is bleeding, Booker is angry, and as Kosak does the first _doctorly_ thing Nicky has seen, Andy explains what Booker has done.

Nicky is angry, sure, but Joe, oh, Joe gets his second wind.

“You fucking _traitor!”_ Joe rants again and again, and Nicky just pleads _“Joe,_ please.” 

Kosak notices because of course she does. She goes over and sets up an IV. “Seems like you’ve got some energy back. Let’s see how this does.” 

“What’s in that bag?” Nicky hisses as Kosak puts another needle in Joe’s arm. He starts to fight in his restraints for the first time in a while. “Hey! _Stronza_ what’s in that bag!” 

Kosak doesn’t answer, stitching up Andy and taking the flesh she’d taken from the wound out to the lab. Nicky cranes his neck, trying to read the bag. The fluid is clear, but Joe is wincing and flexing his hand like it hurts. 

“Joe,” Nicky breaths, “Joe, talk to me.” 

“Hurts,” Joe mutters, blinking slowly. _“Aches,_ fuck, what's in that bag?”

“I don’t know,” Nicky says, feeling panic rise in his throat. “I don’t know, Joe, keep talking to me.” 

Joe doesn’t answer, and that was when Nicky _really_ started fighting. “Joe. _Joe!_ Fuck, Joe, _Yusuf!”_

“I’m sorry,” Booker is sobbing, “I’m so fucking sorry-“

 _“stai zitto, coglione-_ Yusuf, baby, keep talking to me.” 

“Wanna go to Malta,” Joe mutters, coughing and far, far too pale. “Or Lisbon. Portugal is beautiful this time of year.”

“We’ll go,” Nicky swears. “You and me, Yusuf, we’ll go, I swear, _keep talking.”_

Joe closes his eyes, and Nicky curses, fighting against his restraints.

The door flew open, and Nile bursts in, bloody and angry. She goes to Andy first, and Andy unlocks herself and then jumps up, going for Nicky. 

“No!” Nicky says quickly, pointing with his chin. “Check him, check Joe. What’s in the bag?”

Andy quickly undoes Joe’s restraints, looking up at the IV bag. She curses quietly. “It’s arsenic. Fuck, they poisoned him.”

She pulls the needle out of Joe, keeping one hand on the puncture as she undid Nicky’s arm restraint. Nicky did the rest and clambered off his bed, running to Joe’s side. 

He’s still, so still, _too_ still. Nicky brushes his fingers down Joe’s arm, leans down to kiss his forehead. “Joe, _Habibi,_ it’s time to wake up now. Joe? _Joe.”_

Booker was telling Nile to just leave him, and Nile recites her no man left behind shtick. Nicky snarls over his shoulder “first time for everything! You fucking traitor- Joe, please, _dio per favore_ Yusuf don’t do this!” 

Joe didn’t move.

Andy lifts her hand, Joe is still bleeding from that little puncture wound.

Nicky shakes his head, clenching his hands on Joe’s chest. “No, no, Yusuf, Yusuf, _destai, per favore dio, svegliati, per favore amore mio, yusuf, non lasciarmi-“_

He bows his head, pressing his face against Joe’s chest, words falling from his lips on instinct. He didn’t notice he was praying, but he knew all the words. 

_Glory be to god in the highest, lord in heaven grant me this, forgive me my sins and grant me peace, allow me into your pearly gates-_

“Nicky,” Andy whispers, resting a hand on his back. “Nicky, I think it’s-“

“No!” Nicky sobs. “No! _No!”_

There's shooting, shouting, Nicky doesn’t care because his heart has stopped and he was so goddamn _angry,_ angry at Booker and angry at Kosak and Merrick and the _audacity,_ the sheer _nerve_ of the universe to dare-

_Oh god, Yusuf was dead._

Nicky lets out a wordless scream of pain, legs buckling. The floor came up under him, and Nicky just curls up there, pain flooding his chest. He can’t _breathe-_

“Oh, dear.”

That voice, that evil fucking voice cut through everything, and suddenly Nicky’s world was abruptly clear. 

He springs to his feet with a scream and charges at Doctor Kosak, grabbing her by the throat and lifting her up into the air. 

She screams, aborting it when her air supply cuts off. She squirms, kicking her feet. Tears fill her eyes and she chokes out a quiet _“please-“_

“You killed him.” Nicky snarls- no, Nicolo. Now more than ever he was Nicolo Di Genova, crusader and killer. He squeezes tighter. “You murdered him, and for what?”

 _“S-science.”_ Kosak gasps and Nicolo slams her into the wall, lining them up so she’s eye to eye with him.

“Fuck your science,” Nicolo growls. “Fuck your excuses. You murdered him _in cold blood.”_ He spat directly in her face. _“marcisci all'inferno, cagna dal cuore freddo.”_

He reaches up and snaps her neck with ease. 

He turns back to the others, who watched the whole thing. 

Nicolo picks up a machine gun, eyes furious and cold. “Let’s go.”

They run into the hall, leaving a trail of death in their wake. Nicky sees one of the men from the truck and shoots him in both knees. He rushes over and kicks him in the face, pointing his gun directly at the man’s nose.

“You. In the van. You shot Yusuf,” He whispers, and then shoots him three times in the head.

They kill everyone, in fact. Including Merrick. Merrick, who Nile throws off a building. 

They should leave. They know they should leave. But like _fuck_ is he leaving Joe there. 

Nicolo goes back to the lab. Joe is so… silent. There are no pretty words, no tender smiles. No nothing. 

Nicolo feels his heart clench in his chest. This shouldn’t exist. This _shouldn’t exist this shouldn’t exist._

He crosses the room and kisses Joe’s forehead, tears slipping down his nose. 

_“Habibi, alshams, alqamar, nujumi-_ come back to me, please, my life will be dark and pointless without you. _Nur hayati_ I’m begging, please, please Yusuf you _promised me forever.”_

“We have to go, Nicky,” Andy whispered, wiping a tear off her cheek. “I’m so sorry.”

Nicky nods, picking him up in his arms like a bride. They walked out to the car like a goddamn funeral procession.

_Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un_

They clamber into a van. Nicky crawls into the backseat with Joe on his lap, stroking his fingers through the curly hair and sobbing quietly. He tries to memorize every line of his face, his body, every inch of him. He would have to live forever without him now, and Nicky had no idea how it would happen.

He didn’t know how he would ever forgive Booker, he didn’t know how he would _survive._ The grief was eating him _alive._ Clawing at his chest and eating at his heart, the grief was unspeakable and never-ending. 

The idea of _going to bed,_ the idea of sleeping in a cold bed, alone, with no arms wrapped around him, was abhorred. What was he supposed to do when he died the next time and woke up alone? What was he supposed to do when he had a nightmare? When he sat down to eat? When he said one of the million and one jokes that only he and Joe understood?

Nicky sobs a little louder. He wouldn’t even get to talk to him again. He didn’t even get a _goodbye._

How long would he have to live with this? How long would he have to breathe without Joe there to put air in his lungs? 

_“Ti amo,”_ Nicolo sighs, because this much is obvious. _“Ti amerò per sempre”_

And suddenly, Joe jerks upwards with a sharp gasp, and Nile _screams._

Andy stopped the car short and Joe throws himself out of the car, falling to the ground and vomiting. This was typical for poisoning, but they didn’t take _an hour,_ they didn’t- they didn’t make you believe that- 

Joe coughs and wipes his mouth. He looks back at the four of them, sitting in the van and staring at him. 

“... what?” Joe asks, and suddenly Nicolo _shrieks._

He isn’t a particularly showy person, but at that moment he doesn’t care if the good lord himself came down to watch. He flies out of the car and into Joe’s arms, sending them both to the ground and clinging to him tight enough to bruise. 

“Nicolo-“ 

“You were _gone,”_ Nicky sobs into his shoulder, “you _left me.”_

“Oh, Nicolo.” Joe holds him tighter, presses kisses to his forehead and cheeks and anywhere else he could reach. "Shh, _qalbi_ , I'm here."

Nicky buries his face in Joe's chest for a long moment, trembling and sobbing. "Thank god, thank you god, oh lord thank you, thank you, thank you-"

"Shh," Joe strokes warm hands through his hair, slowly starting to rise. "Shh, _tesoro,_ _Sono qui."_

They stand slowly, Nicky pressing up against Joe's side 

"Joe!" Nile shouts, clambering out of the vehicle to join the hug. Nicky keeps his hand on Joe's back as he hugs Nile tightly, then accepts another hug from Andy.

Booker hesitates off to the side. Joe opens his arms to him and says "This doesn't mean I've forgiven you."

Booker nods, hugging him tight. Nicky tugs Joe back to him once its done, clinging to him like he'd disappear.

There's a lot to deal with. Booker and Copley and Nile's new life, but none of that matters.

Not so long as Joe is there, breathing and shining like the sun, speaking words, and filing Nicky's life. 

He holds him tighter in the back seat, vowing once more to never let go.

**Author's Note:**

> Translations:  
> Stronza - evil Bitch  
> stai zitto, coglione- shut up, asshole  
> habibi- baby  
> dio per favore- please god  
> destai, per favore dio, svegliati, per favore amore mio, yusuf, non lasciarmi- wake, please god, wake up, please my love, yusuf, don't leave me  
> marcisci all'inferno, cagna dal cuore freddo- rot in hell, cold hearted bitch  
> Habibi, alshams, alqamar, nujumi- my love, the sun, the moon, the stars  
> Nur hayati- Light of my life  
> Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un- Verily we belong to Allah, and verily to Him we return. (a common phrase said by muslims when a loved one dies)  
> Ti amo- I love you  
> Ti amerò per sempre- I love you forever  
> qualbi- my heart  
> Tesoro, sono qui- treasure, I'm here  
> (Please note I do not speak Italian or Arabic, lemme know if I made any mistakes)
> 
> ~~~
> 
> I'm not there rn but my tumblr is www.flamingbluepanda.com, leave some old guard content in my inbox for when I get back!
> 
> byeeeee


End file.
